


Alpha and Omega

by LadyChi



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-09
Updated: 2010-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-25 18:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyChi/pseuds/LadyChi





	Alpha and Omega

_He_ begins like this:

Eight-thirty in the morning, the alarm goes off, but Anna's been awake for hours. There's a pain in her lower back, and something won't let her rest. Her mother would have told her it was thousands of years of instinct, but Anna knows... Anna knows it's God talking to her, telling her to be ready.

Mike's still not home, but then, he hasn't been home often these last few months. She knows it's hard for him to see her so large, to want her the way that she wants him to want her. She shoves aside those feelings of inadequacy, and she walks on silent feet to Seeley's room.

There's her little boy. Curled up on his bed, sucking his thumb, rear-end in the air. A book she just read tells her he sleeps like this because he's still young enough to remember that this was how he slept in the womb.

She lays a hand on his back and whispers that it's time to go. There's no one else here to take him, and Lord knows, if she wants to make it, she has to leave now.

Hours pass, and little Seeley is watched by doctors and nurses, and then hustled out of the room for hours while his mother grunts and strains and moans. Eventually, they call him back in the room and show him a little bundle.

He's three-years-old and someone says to him, “Look, Seeley. That's your little brother.”

“Brother?”

“Yeah. His name's Jared, son.”

Seeley nods, with eyes that already too serious for someone so young. Somehow, he thinks... No, he knows that he's supposed to protect this little life. That's his job. He brushes a hand against Jared's cheek and says hello.

**

 _She_ begins like this:

Self-awareness comes early to Tempe, like so many things do. She's keenly aware of her other-ness, the way that she is somehow separate from the rest of the world, and yet part of it. She wrestles with big questions before she can even speak. Max jokes that he can tell her soul is years older than her body.

The world confuses her, and she doesn't like to be confused. She starts to figure it out, though. The rules of the game, of physics, of classroom politics, of families... She builds a world in black and white.

And then her parents shatter it.

“Tempe!” Russ opens the door to find her sitting on the couch, reading a book and tapping her foot impatiently.

“What did they say?”

“They're going to look, Tempe, that's all they can do. They're going to look.”

Tempe stares off into the sky. “Statistically speaking, the first forty-eight hours are the most important in locating a missing person.”

“Listen, Tempe. Wherever they are, they've got each other, right? I'm sure they'll turn up.”

“You promise?”

Russ is young. He doesn't think about breaking her heart. “Yeah, Tempe. I promise.”

Three weeks later, he's gone.

**

 _They_ begin like this:

“I can't,” she said once, on a tone that broke his heart. Her heart, though, was in her eyes, there for him to see.

He told her that he was going to move on, and he tries, he really does. He dates women and loves them and makes love to them, but there's always her. Always her in the background.

“Hey, uh, Bones?” They're walking back from coffee at the diner, carelessly bumping into each other. It's a bright spring morning, and yet he feels a little drunk. Good conversation, good company, the scent of her perfume in his nostrils. He remembers when he used to tequila to fire her the first time. Maybe if he'd just talked to her, then... Well, he'd still have been drunk.

“Yeah, Booth? That's a serious expression. Did you have something you want to say?”

“Yeah.” Booth tosses his cup of coffee in a trashcan and sticks his hands in his pockets. “They want me for Deputy Director.”

Her face falls for a second, but she works it back up to something more excited. “That's... really good. The increase in your salary will be extremely beneficial, and the decreased level of danger will be reassuring for your family and friends.”

“I didn't say I was going to take it.” Booth fingers his lucky poker chip. “I kind of like my job now, Bones.”

“You are an extremely good field agent,” Brennan says, simply. Booth smiles because he knows that she sees it as a fact.

“Thanks, there, Bones.” He sighs. “Still, you're right. Parker's getting older. The hours are long, I'm missing out on stuff. It might be time to put it all away.”

“Would they assign me another...” Brennan shakes her head. “No, if you're done, then I'm done.”

“Bones, don't be ridiculous.”

“I'm not.” Brennan shrugs her shoulders. “Part of the enjoyment I get out of the job is in working with you. I'm far too set in my ways to train another FBI agent to handle me.”

Booth grins. “You trained me, huh?”

She gives him that half-smile he's so very fond of. “Yes, I did. Is... Sarah going to be happy?”

“Sarah's been around for a week, Bones. She's not at the point where she gets to help me make decisions like this.”

“Oh.” Brennan exhales the air in her lungs quickly. “Well, that's good, then.”

“We're still going to see each other, Bones. We are.”

“Coffee?”

“More than coffee. Are you kidding? Lunches, breakfasts, suppers.. mid-afternoon meetings.”

“I think you're being extremely optimistic,” Brennan says flatly.

“Yeah, well. That's my job, Bones.”

She smiles. “No, it's not. But thank you.”

**

There's some stuff in the middle. Stuff like – kisses and hugs and touches underneath of the table. Rings and houses and life lived together. There's coffee and lunches and suppers and mid-afternoon meetings. There's hotel rooms in the desert, next to the ocean and near the mountains. There's a moment when Parker calls Bones step-mom, but... takes it back and says he likes calling her Bones better. There's a lot of beginnings. There are a few endings.

**

This is how _he_ ends.

It's how he would have wanted to go, Bones decides, as she packs his things, not meant for her, into boxes. One for Parker. One for Jared's daughter. One for their daughter. She'll keep the cocky belt buckle and the poker chip. Those are the things that are meant for her. He wanted to be surrounded by family and friends, to feel the love he'd so carefully protected all of his life.

She'd kissed him good-bye. Because once, he'd asked her to. And then children left them alone so that she could stroke his hair and tell him that she remembered all of her promises.

She keeps them.

She walks down to the grave and leaves flowers and talks to him, in a voice that's softer than it once had been. Her daughter helps her kneel, and then helps her stand.

**

This is how _she_ ends:

Without a fuss. They find her in bed, wrapped around a pillow that still smelled like him. A vase of flowers and his picture next to her bed. She seems still, and at peace.

At the funeral, they whisper about how she was never the same. How she seemed to be waiting to leave. How they had always been this way, Booth and Brennan. How one without the other was wrong.

**

This is how they begin, in the ending. They find a way to be together, to intertwine their lives. Eventually, she believes he'll never leave because he never does, and he teaches her that her heart's already open – so open, so loving, so _wide_ that there's nothing to fear.

How do they end? Brennan would say quietly... Booth, though. He never believed in endings. He never accepted no. He never accepted separation.

Booth would say there is only one Alpha and Omega – that everything else, everything else is up for grabs.

So how do they end? Maybe they don't. 


End file.
